The Evolution of Man, V.2, Ernst Haeckel [free ebook reader for pc txt] 📗

1863 by Huxley, in his famous Man's Place in Nature. On the strength of careful comparative anatomical research he proved that the apes are just as truly "two-handed" as man; or, if we prefer to reverse it, that man is as truly four-handed as the ape. He showed convincingly that the ideas of hand and foot had been wrongly defined, and had been improperly based on physiological instead of morphological grounds. The circumstance that we oppose the thumb to the other four fingers in our hand, and so can grasp things, seemed to be a special distinction of the hand in contrast to the foot, in which the corresponding great toe cannot be opposed in this way to the others. But the apes can grasp with the hind-foot as well as the fore, and so were regarded as quadrumanous. However, the inability to grasp that we find in the foot of civilised man is a consequence of the habit of clothing it with tight coverings for thousands of years. Many of the bare-footed lower races of men, especially among the negroes, use the foot very freely in the same way as the hand. As a result of early habit and continued practice, they can grasp with the foot (in climbing trees, for instance) just as well as with the hand. Even new-born infants of our own race can grasp very strongly with the great toe, and hold a spoon with it as firmly as with the hand. Hence the physiological distinction between hand and foot can neither be pressed very far, nor has it a scientific basis. We must look to morphological characters.

As a matter of fact, it is possible to draw such a sharp morphological distinction--a distinction based on anatomic structure--between the fore and hind extremity. In the formation both of the bony skeleton and of the muscles that are connected with the hand and foot before and behind there are material and constant differences; and these are found both in man and the ape. For instance, the number and arrangement of the smaller bones of the hand and foot are quite different. There are similar constant differences in the muscles. The hind extremity always has three muscles (a short flexor muscle, a short extensor muscle, and a long calf-muscle) that are not found in the fore extremity. The arrangement of the muscles also is different before and behind. These characteristic differences between the fore and hind extremities are found in man as well as the ape. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the ape's foot deserves that name just as much as the human foot does, and that all true apes are just as "bimanous" as man. The common distinction of the apes as "quadrumanous" is altogether wrong morphologically.

But it may be asked whether, quite apart from this, we can find any other features that distinguish man more sharply from the ape than the various species of apes are distinguished from each other. Huxley gave so complete and demonstrative a reply to this question that the opposition still raised on many sides is absolutely without foundation. On the ground of careful comparative anatomical research, Huxley proved that in all morphological respects the differences between the highest and lowest apes are greater than the corresponding differences between the highest apes and man. He thus restored Linne's order of the Primates (excluding the bats), and divided it into three sub-orders, the first composed of the half-apes (Lemuridae), the second of the true apes (Simiadae), the third of men (Anthropidae).

But, as we wish to proceed quite consistently and impartially on the laws of systematic logic, we may, on the strength of Huxley's own law, go a good deal farther in this division. We are justified in going at least one important step farther, and assigning man his natural place within one of the sections of the order of apes. All the features that characterise this group of apes are found in man, and not found in the other apes. We do not seem to be justified, therefore, in founding for man a special order distinct from the apes.

The order of the true apes (Simiae or Pitheca)--excluding the lemurs--has long been divided into two principal groups, which also differ in their geographical distribution. One group (Hesperopitheca, or western apes) live in America. The other group, to which man belongs, are the Eopitheca or eastern apes; they are found in Asia and Africa, and were formerly in Europe. All the eastern apes agree with man in the features that are chiefly used in zoological classification to distinguish between the two simian groups, especially in the dentition. The objection might be raised that the teeth are too subordinate an organ physiologically for us to lay stress on them in so important a question. But there is a good reason for it; it is with perfect justice that zoologists have for more than a century paid particular attention to the teeth in the systematic division and arrangement of the orders of mammals. The number, form, and arrangement of the teeth are much more faithfully inherited in the various orders than most other characters.

Hence the form of dentition in man is very important. In the fully developed condition we have thirty-two teeth; of these eight are incisors, four canine, and twenty molars. The eight incisors, in the middle of the jaws, have certain characteristic differences above and below. In the upper jaw the inner incisors are larger than the outer; in the lower jaw the inner are the smaller. Next to these, at each side of both jaws, is a canine (or "eye tooth"), which is larger than the incisors. Sometimes it is very prominent in man, as it is in most apes and many of the other mammals, and forms a sort of tusk. Next to this there are five molars above and below on each side, the first two of which (the "pre-molars") are small, have only one root, and are included in the change of teeth; the three back ones are much larger, have two roots, and only come with the second teeth. The apes of the Old World, or all the living or fossil apes of Asia, Africa, and Europe, have the same dentition as man.

(FIGURES 2.278 TO 2.282. Skeletons of man and the four anthropoid apes. (From Huxley.) Cf. Figures 1.203 to 1.209.

FIGURE 2.278. Gibbon (Hylobates).

FIGURE 2.279. Orang (Satyrus).

FIGURE 2.280. Chimpanzee (Anthropithecus).

FIGURE 2.281. Gorilla (Gorilla).

FIGURE 2.282. Man (Homo).)

On the other hand, all the American apes have an additional pre-molar in each half of the jaw. They have six molars above and below on each side, or thirty-six teeth altogether. This characteristic difference between the eastern and western apes has been so faithfully inherited that it is very instructive for us. It is true that there seems to be an exception in the case of a small family of South American apes. The small silky apes (Arctopitheca or Hapalidae), which include the tamarin (Midas) and the brush-monkey (Jacchus), have only five molars in each half of the jaw (instead of six), and so seem to be nearer to the eastern apes. But it is found, on closer examination, that they have three premolars, like all the western apes, and that only the last molar has been lost. Hence the apparent exception really confirms the above distinction.

Of the other features in which the two groups of apes differ, the structure of the nose is particularly instructive and conspicuous. All the eastern apes have the same type of nose as man--a comparatively narrow partition between the two halves, so that the nostrils run downwards. In some of them the nose protrudes as far as in man, and has the same characteristic structure. We have already alluded to the curious long-nosed apes, which have a long, finely-curved nose. Most of the eastern apes have, it is true, rather flat noses, like, for instance, the white-nosed monkey (Figure 2.276); but the nasal partition is thin and narrow in them all. The American apes have a different type of nose. The partition is very broad and thick at the bottom, and the wings of the nostrils are not developed, so that they point outwards instead of downwards. This difference in the form of the nose is so constantly inherited in both groups that the apes of the New World are called "flat-nosed" (Platyrrhinae), and those of the Old World "narrow-nosed" (Catarrhinae). The bony passage of the ear (at the bottom of which is the tympanum) is short and wide in all the Platyrrhines, but long and narrow in all the Catarrhines; and in man this difference also is significant.

This division of the apes into Platyrrhines and Catarrhines, on the ground of the above hereditary features, is now generally admitted in zoology, and receives strong support from the geographical distribution of the two groups in the east and west. It follows at once, as regards the phylogeny of the apes, that two divergent lines proceeded from the common stem-form of the ape-order in the early Tertiary period, one of which spread over the Old, the other over the New, World. It is certain that all the Platyrrhines come of one stock, and also all the Catarrhines; but the former are phylogenetically older, and must be regarded as the stem-group of the latter.

What can we deduce from this with regard to our own genealogy? Man has just the same characters, the same form of dentition, auditory passage, and nose, as all the Catarrhines; in this he radically differs from the Platyrrhines. We are thus forced to assign him a position among the eastern apes in the order of Primates, or at least place him alongside of them. But it follows that man is a direct blood relative of the apes of the Old World, and can be traced to a common stem-form together with all the Catarrhines. In his whole organisation and in his origin man is a true Catarrhine; he originated in the Old World from an unknown, extinct group of the eastern apes. The apes of the New World, or the Platyrrhines, form a divergent branch of our genealogical tree, and this is only distantly related at its root to the human race. We must assume, of course, that the earliest Eocene apes had the full dentition of the Platyrrhines; hence we may regard this stem-group as a special stage (the twenty-sixth) in our ancestry, and deduce from it (as the twenty-seventh stage) the earliest Catarrhines.

We have now reduced the circle of our nearest relatives to the small and comparatively scanty group that is represented by the sub-order of the Catarrhines; and we are in a position to answer the question of man's place in this sub-order, and say whether we can deduce anything further from this position as to our immediate ancestors. In answering this question the comprehensive and able studies that Huxley gives of the comparative anatomy of man and the various Catarrhines in his Man's Place in Nature are of great assistance to us. It is quite clear from these that the differences between man and the highest Catarrhines (gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang) are in every respect slighter than the corresponding differences between the highest and the lowest Catarrhines (white-nosed monkey, macaco, baboon, etc.). In fact, within the small group of the tail-less anthropoid apes the differences between the various genera are not less than the differences between them and man. This is seen by a glance at the skeletons that Huxley has put together (Figures 2.278 to 2.282). Whether we take the skull or the vertebral column or the ribs or the fore or hind limbs, or whether we extend the comparison to the muscles, blood-vessels, brain, placenta, etc., we always reach the same result on impartial examination--that man is not more different from the other Catarrhines than the extreme forms of them (for instance, the gorilla and baboon) differ from each other. We may now, therefore, complete the Huxleian law we